The season for these birds opens in the North on 20th August, and in the
South on 1st September. They have been lately exterminated in the New
Forest and in Norfolk, and have long since disappeared in most of the
counties south-east of Staffordshire. In Salop and Wales there are a few
of them, as there are also in Devonshire and Somersetshire and in all
the northern counties. They are and always have been absent from
Ireland, but are found throughout the Highlands and the border counties,
and are far more numerous in Dumfriesshire and Selkirkshire than
elsewhere. Probably the species is decreasing in numbers everywhere,
except in isolated patches of country where they are especially
preserved. They are found throughout North Europe and North Asia, but in
the Caucasus there is a second and only other species, which is smaller,
and in which the cocks are blacker, than in our species. A peculiarity
of black game is that the cocks do not acquire the lyre tails until the
third year, although the hens are said to be fertile in the second year.
The white under the tail of the black cocks is flecked with black until
the bird grows old, when the black gradually disappears. It is not at
all uncommon to see beautiful word painting detailing the glories of the
lyre tail, amongst other beauties, on 20th August, but this is not
painting from nature, for neither old nor young birds have the lyre tail
at that time. The old birds are then in full moult, and although they
can fly as well as ever, they lie to dogs then as at no other time of
the year, except in July and the earlier days of August. No one would
wish these old stagers to be shot then, where they are numerous enough
to afford driving later in the season. But where they are scarce, and
that is nearly everywhere, they are liable to become more so by the
inability of sportsmen to kill them at the only time of year they can be
approached. The man who shoots them during the first seven days of
grouse shooting breaks the law, but assists to save the race; for too
many cocks there always are, and the majority of them are too old, and
interfere with their younger relations in the breeding season. This
cannot be avoided as long as sportsmen make a practice of killing the
young birds over dogs during grouse shooting. Until after 1st September
the birds of the year lie close and to their sorrow rise singly, so that
one has but to find a brood and exterminate it. The old cock will not be
with the chicks, and probably the grey hen will get shot; but she is
more likely to escape than any of the young ones. Consequently, where
the birds are not separately driven later in the season, the
preservation and shooting of this fine game bird proceeds upon the
principle of killing all the young ones and leaving all the old. That is
exactly opposite to the principle adopted for all other game, and we
cannot wonder that the race decreases in numbers. Another reason for the
decrease is that moorlands are being more drained than they formerly
were, and this destroys the rushes, upon the seeds of which young black
game mostly live in their early period. They do not breed in the woods,
but prefer to have their chicks on the lower moors, where they can find
rushes, heather, and bracken. Whether they eat bracken in its early
stages of growth, as pheasants have been known to do, the author is not
aware, but upon the moorlands around St. Mary’s Loch, where there are no
coverts, there used to be large numbers of black game, and in hunting
the moors they were rarely to be found elsewhere than in the rushes and
the ferns. Probably, therefore, ferns as well as rushes are useful in
some way to them, although it may be because ferns are a great resort of
flies. The way that every young bird has to be found separately, and
each gives the dog a point (whereas the grouse in most counties rise in
broods), makes the keepers treasure the black game for the dog-breaking
facilities they offer. They teach dogs to believe that there is always
another in the heather, until they are sure there is not. But black game
offer very easy shots, and consequently sportsmen rather despise them in
this early stage. Then, on a sudden, a total change comes over the young
birds, as it were in a night, and they are transformed into birds as
wary as wild geese, and sit up on the hillocks to watch for danger.
After that they must be stalked, driven, or left alone.
Stalking black game with a rook rifle is nice sport—infinitely more
difficult than stalking red deer. With the shot gun it is still harder,
because of the necessity of a nearer approach. But difficult as it is,
the author once knew of a most extraordinary stalk. Two guns, unknown to
each other, both stalked from different directions the same black cock
on his fir tree; both, by luck or judgment, got up to the game; each
fired at the same instant, and when the game fell, each unaware that the
other had shot, claimed the bird. If that sort of thing can be done, it
cannot be very difficult. But probably it never happened before or
since, and as a matter of fact it is difficult to stalk black game.
If these birds were really plentiful they would be the most valued of
all our game birds for driving. Probably there is not a pin to choose
between their pace and that of grouse when coming down wind. The author
has watched them coming to the butts together for half a mile, and the
only difference was that the black cock were two storeys higher than the
grouse. That shows which would be most appreciated by sportsmen, who are
never happy unless they are accomplishing the difficult. But they are
too few to drive separately in most places, and do not drive well with
grouse. It would have been no uncommon thing had those third-storey
birds turned back in the air and gone off over the drivers’ heads while
the silly grouse were facing the music of the butts and dying in clouds
of smoke, for this reference is to black powder days. Your black game
can think in the air, like the wild ducks, and they can also fly into a
wind about as fast as with one, again imitating the marvellous and
unexplained power of some wild fowl, especially the teal. Pheasants,
partridges, and grouse are creatures of the wind more or less, and
pretty difficult to turn when the wind has got them, but not so your
black game; they smell danger from afar, often only suspect it, but as
they are like wild ducks, not slaves but kings of the wind, they will
act upon their suspicion, because it is nothing to them to beat up
against a wind, and besides, they are careless how long they fly. You
cannot drive wild ducks, nor pigeons, nor black game, if they suspect
your purpose. But when things are well managed they give great sport.
Usually they will not, like a grouse, almost knock your cap off by
rushing past your butt too near to shoot. They will be well up and look
to be going easy. There they deceive, for they will be coming quite as
fast as grouse if it is down a moderate wind, and if up wind very much
faster, so that the lead, or allowance, and swing required is far more
likely to be under than over done.
The author has taken part in killing 40 brace of black cock in a day,
with no more excuse than that it was good for the dogs; but the kind of
shooting in which anyone may be proud of a good score is in driving.
Then the shooters have every right to gratification, but the drivers
have far more. Late in the season, when black game are fit to drive,
they sit up in the fir trees to look out for the enemy. They are so
still in the dark Scotch pines that you may not see a bird as you go to
take up your stand, but possibly the quarry has been watching all the
time, and has observed not only the shooters but the drivers. Then your
black game will probably be able to get away by the flanks, or if not,
like the wild ducks, they may remember that there is always room at the
top. In other words, they have the habits of game birds in August and of
wood pigeons and wild duck in October. They are only unsatisfactory
because the young birds are too confiding to shoot, and the old ones too
artful to get shot.
The Duke of Buccleuch has had great sport with black game on his
Drumlanrig Castle estate, but his best years there were a long time ago;
the birds have been gradually growing fewer ever since. His very best
year was in 1861, when 1586 black game were killed. This total upon an
estate of more than 150,000 acres, although the largest, is nevertheless
very small when compared with grouse and partridge bags over estates of
one-tenth the size. Apparently the black game do not lend themselves to
great concentration of breeding birds, or if they do, their fertility
does not seem to be very great. Besides, concentration for shooting is
extremely difficult, as is proved by the biggest bag ever made in a day.
At Sanquhar, in Dumfriesshire, the late Duke of Buccleuch, with the
assistance of eight other guns, once killed 247 black game in the day,
of which over 200 were black cocks. This is probably the record day’s
bag for Scotland or anywhere else, but it is noteworthy that it is only
about one-tenth the number of grouse that have been killed in a day, and
we may fairly say that the art of preserving black game has to be
discovered, as also has that of introducing the bird into country new to
it, which is only saying the same thing in other words.
The author has shot black game on Dartmoor and in Caithness and in most
of the intermediate counties where they exist. Everywhere he has noticed
a too great number of black cocks in proportion to hens, and as
polygamous birds they should be treated like pheasants in this respect.
The other point most noticed is that not more than a quarter of the grey
hens breed. There is reason for this, and if it could be discovered,
probably black game might be reared in numbers equal to grouse. The
author merely speculates when he says that the excess of cocks has
something to do with the trouble, but probably a worse fault still is
that the old birds of both sexes are not shot, and the young ones are.
There is no greater mistake than to believe that driving is an automatic
selection of the old birds for destruction. This is far from the case in
grouse shooting in Scotland, although in Yorkshire it is different; but
your old black cock and grey hen carry years of wisdom to the topmost
branch of the Scotch pine, and from that vantage post meet human
strategy with avian tactics—and live to fight another year.
It is a great pity that someone does not take up the black game question
and study it thoroughly. There are hundreds of thousands of acres of
bracken, pine, and rush ground in Scotland, England, and Wales that have
no sporting value. They are too high for pheasants and partridges, and
do not grow the right food for grouse. The result is that they are
useless, but are nevertheless natural homes for black game, and are so
much appreciated that bachelor black cocks will inhabit them for years,
as also will a few old grey hens that do not breed, and the probability
is that they keep off all the breeding birds.
The grey hen lays from six to ten eggs on the ground. They are of a
yellowish shade spotted with darker colour of brown or orange-brown. The
playing-grounds and manners of the birds in love and war are best
described in Booth’s rough notes, and best illustrated in Millais’ game
birds and shooting sketches. However, both seem to suggest that all the
birds in the neighbourhood meet on one playing-ground. This is not so,
and there are sometimes and probably always several simultaneous
tournaments in very near proximity.
The black game has feathered legs but not feathered feet, as has
erroneously been stated.
These birds have been successfully introduced, and have bred for some
years, at Woburn Abbey. Capercailzie have also been added to the birds
of England by means of their successful introduction in the woods of
Woburn, by the Duke and Duchess of Bedford.